Please Speak Well Of Me
by rantler
Summary: Victory came out at a cost. Miranda watches over what's left of Shepard and wonders if the one who signed that cheque will find it all as worthwhile as the rest of the galaxy.
1. World Spins Madly On

**Author's Notes:** A post-ME3 fic that shamelessly employs theory over canon.

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><p>"Dammit"<p>

It was too cold for June and her hands were starting to chap enough to start to crack and bleed. Alliance dress was far too keen on function over form for her tastes. God, had she missed her old uniform; it had style in addition to functionality and, most importantly, gloves. Gloves would prevent this kind of crap. That was about as long as her list of complaints went, however. Standard issue fatigues were the hottest in fashion on a crippled Earth, and Miranda Lawson hadn't exactly packed a travel bag when she hit ground side with her small but sufficient complement of Cerberus expats during the final push against the Reapers.

Her nerves then just twitched as if she had been electrocuted from the inside. The simple word Reaper was still a fresh on every one's mind-and their wounds. The last of them had only been confirmed dead three weeks, two days, and eight hours ago. She had been counting. Everyone left alive in all of this had been counting along with her. The Reapers were absolutely, unequivocally, without contention or doubt, dead. That the immense cheque they cashed to see it so had yet to bounce was testament to their victory, to their sacrifice.

There was still too much in the wake of the Reaper's destruction for there to be an after party. You had your tearful reunions that were even more tearful than recent confirmations of casualties. But no one had yet taken it upon themselves to get up and officially announcing at the top of their lungs, to humanity and all its allies that it was over. The harsh reality was that it wasn't. Wars were messy in their aftermath. Narrowly avoided galactic genocide of all sapient life just left a bigger mess. Everyone was part of the clean-up, and Miranda was no exception.

She had just dragged her last wounded soldier out of a heap of rubble and to the shuttles when the call came in they were pulling out of this area. They had been at this task with some to little success for more hours than a day seemed to hold. Everyone deployed to recovering the dead and dying were starting to look more like the people they were salvaging as the hours went by. Again, Miranda was no exception.

She pulled her hair out of the haphazard knot she had it in under a blue Alliance cap before stepping back on the e-vac shuttles with the rest of the pickup crew. It felt good to let her dry, lifeless black curls fall back around her face as the shuttles jerked up off the ground, giving her a much needed exposure to a nice breeze. However short lived that was as the shuttle doors snapped closed and Miranda retreated to the harnessed sets in the back. She felt every inch of her body throb with ache as she buckled in.

At the front, the pilot called out to her their ETA from here to the nearest base and hospital. He called her something that wasn't Miranda. To the Alliance pilot and everyone aboard, she was Cassandra Walker-a civilian doctor volunteering with the Alliance to help with search and rescue here on Earth. A galactic war at an end, her father dead, and Cerberus completely eradicated. And she was still running.

Alliance brass had been privy to know she had been responsible for a rash of raids on Cerberus facilities and sympathizers, but that didn't mean she wasn't going announce who she was and simply stay topside. A Reaper invasion was enough to keep top brass off of her, but there were plenty of people just coming out of the trenches who would just love to get their hands on someone formerly high up in Cerberus's echelons. Hiding out in the open was easier now that only the chance of some revenge-seeking victim of Cerberus was what concerned her.

This was her own doing, with a little help from some of the other ex-Cerberus operatives she had brought with her. It was easy to cull support from other Cerberus refugees. They were in it as just bad as she was; connected to Cerberus and with family and loved ones to shield from misguided retribution. Right now, she just had to keep her head low and her wits sharp while keeping busy and staying useful. Her safety was Oriana's safety. Anyone who wanted to give to the crimes Cerberus committed in this war voice, it would sure be her own, and would be sure to use Oriana against her. Even when the entire galaxy stood together, something would always keep her on her toes.

Oriana was here, was safe, and she couldn't complain with the humble connections she had carved for herself here on Earth. Hindsight was 20-20 and Miranda could see just how lucky she was, in light of things.

At least she could never say she was bored. Or worse, left with her own thoughts. But there always something; a fly in the web she surrounded herself in that buzzed incessantly night and day that robbed her of any semblance of peace of mind; an elephant in some dark room of her mind that never made just sitting down a comfortable experience. The fine print in what was supposed to be the makings of a new life.

Shepard wasn't here.

The shuttle hit the landing pad before she could let that sobering thought creep out from back of her mind where she planned to keep it. She and a few other volunteers were moved here last night to aid the Alliance: a twenty-first century underground nuclear disposal facility that had been retrofitted to operate as both a hospital and an Alliance base. Nothing was left to go to waste; as soon as the smoke settled there was a massive land grab to re-purpose anything that could be used to see to the basic needs of what was left of Earth's population and the some million allied forces in this system holding their collective breath until word came back on just what the hell had happened to the Sol Relay.

Whatever happened with Shepard and the Citadel set the sky on fire, literally.

Miranda stopped herself from dwelling right there. She scrambled out of her harness and out onto the landing pad to sign over the wounded to triage, and the less fortunate to mortuary crew. She directed the small army of doctors and other medical staff to the shuttles they were respectively needed before ducking into the base. Hit the rack for an hour, or check in on Ori who was out working with a multi-race engineer team that oversaw the logistics of temporary housing. Miranda sometimes forgot her baby sister was a free-thinking adult. Sometimes.

She brought up the time display on her omni-tool. Ori was four hours out from where she was, and either working or sleeping like a normal human being given the late hour. For once, her sister would have to come second to a much needed rest. Miranda stepped into one of the building's archaic elevators and punched the display pad for the staff quarters. This was her life now, for better or worse. It kept her moving, if anything.

Cassandra Walker's quarters-her quarters-were spartan, even in this time of limited resources. There was a bed, a desk, a small bathroom, and the one dresser for her grand total of three outfits. Her upper lip curled. When all of this was behind them and a footnote in universal history, Miranda was doing some damn shopping.

She stripped herself of everything but an undershirt and panties before collapsing in the bed that could only be called such because someone put a wooden frame and extra padding on a cot. It felt good. Miranda had almost relaxed when the call came in from her omni-tool.

The displayed blared that reception needed her ASAP.

"Dr. Walker?"

Staff, volunteer or no, were not permitted to turn them off at anytime. She really hated that rule. Why did omni-tools have to be holographic display tech. She couldn't throw a hologram at the wall.

"Walker here." Miranda still managed to sound alert and attentive while gritting her teeth against her pillow. They were going to ask her to come down for one reason or another; that mean putting clothes back on.

"Dr. Walker, um..." The line went silent for a moment. Whomever was working reception was either new enough, or stupid enough to know casualty numbers racked up when she was kept waiting. Miranda was all set to let them have it when,

"Admiral Hackett just asked for you."

Alright; that certainly was enough incentive that got her up and moving. No sooner did she say she would be down was she dressed, her hair hastily flipped up into a field cap, then making a beeline into the nearest elevator. When a call like that came in she would have to use the secure comm room down in reception just to get a signal.

Bunker-turned-reception was a ghost town. Miranda scanned the room to find it as empty as she had anticipated it to be; the dead and dying had few visitors when everyone were similarly stuck in either of those categories. There was a telling sort of quiet in the air that put her on edge as she made her way over to the reception desk.

A woman-Alliance; top brass by the looks of her, and pushing her fifties was chatting up reception. Miranda had expected Hackett on vid-comm, not this. Sending someone out on a moments notice was a gross misappropriation of already strained resources. Unless this was a bigger emergency than could be handled in the comm room. Before she could process all worse case scenarios to warrant this the woman became aware of Miranda's presence.

Before saying anything to Miranda, the woman waved off the receptionist. When she turned to face her Miranda noted that her disposition made her stick out. It was disarmingly cheery.

"Miranda Lawson? Rear Admiral Hannah Shepard, I'd like you to come with me."

RDML. Shepard smiled. Miranda dropped all pretense to gawk.

When the Alliance came for her the first time, Shepard had told her to cooperate long enough to get the hell out of dodge and leave it all to her. When the Alliance came for her again, Miranda followed Shepard.

A Shepard.


	2. Mission Bells

**A/N:** I apologize for the short chapter. IRL got in the way, but I promise further installments will be longer and greater in detail.

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><p>RDML. Shepard had not come alone, and the small complement of heavily armed marines were similarly not accommodating Miranda's demands for an explanation. It wasn't until she was escorted to the small, ten-man Corvette-class vessel-the SMV <em>Gently As She Goes, <em>that she was given much opportunity to question. Or, at least, assess the situation.

Until they broke low atmo and it was just the two of them. Miranda sat in the back across from Shepard in silence; watching this strange women with an academic sort of curiosity as she tried to gauge the meaning behind her sudden appearance.

Hannah Shepard did not look much like her better known daughter. Appearance-wise she had undeniable physically similarities, but they all ended at a very superficial level. Shepard's mother was bright in appearance, and disposition; a traditional beauty, even at her age. The way she carried herself was a tell that she had spent the better half of her military career running missions than doing them. The bars on her uniform were sign she was good at it.

A far-cry from her daughter, but not without lacking a certain commanding presence expected of a Shepard. She also did _not _fit the part of someone grieving the loss of one's child. That above all was what kept her interested, and not looking for the first opening to hijack this frigate home.

Miranda couldn't tell if the continued silence between them was supposed to be some sort posturing act meant to intimidate her, or some misguided social grace. Looking at Shepherd, her hawk-like eyes following her every move, Miranda suspected the former. She played along, settling on the idea she'd get more of her questions answered if she let the one who effectively abducted her take the floor.

Shepard indeed spoke first, "You must have a few questio-"

"You're damned right I do."

"-_questions._" The RDML's brow furrowed as she got the last word in. It must have been a while since she had dealt with anyone outside the Alliance, but Miranda had no desire to indulge a career soldier's comfort zone.

The mood shifted to all-business almost immediately; the RDML's tone significantly hardened All pleasantries were dropped when it became apparent it wasn't going to win Miranda over anytime soon. A good call, by Miranda's estimate. This could have been Shepherd herself, and Miranda still wasn't going to budge until her questions were indeed answered, or time stopped.

Fortunately, the rear admiral appeared to have as little patience as she did. Not long into this silent stalement did Shepard budge, and finally start talking. She pulled up a small screen display on her omni-tool and began what could best be described as a briefing.

"Two hours after the Crucible assault our fleets tracked a rachni scouting vessel breaking off from the bulk of the fleet and heading planet-side."

The visual on her omni-tool confirmed as much. Miranda crossed her arms and thought better if she took everything in before commenting. Hannah continued,

"Fourteen hours after the Crucible assault a small squad of biotics ten kliks south of the Citadel beam were pinged by rachni scouts, and it was another nine hours after the fact that we got word the two groups had rendezvoused."

Hannah used the haptic display to show Miranda the movements of both parties. Even just a couple of crude readings were enough of to illustrate the desperation and confusion of the situation. What exactly were the rachni doing?

Miranda watched Shepard's mother like a hawk; Hannah's brows furrowed, and her pupils dilated. Something about this briefing was disturbing her on some kind of personal level.

"A handful of Grissom Academy graduates and their instructor part of the biotics squad making the rendezvous were quick to report back with this,"

There was a single image still brought up that nearly made Miranda blink twice. The air in her lungs evaporated in a flash.

It was Shepard. Commander Shepard.

Miranda couldn't tell where the rubble ended and Shepard began; it was all a mess of blood, cement and steel. The only defining feature that made it Shepard was the blood soaked N7 chest plate. A rachni scout was cradling what could be generously called her body in its tendrils. Like a praying mantis with a kill, Miranda thought as she swallowed the bile in her throat.

Hannah closed the display and looked Miranda in the eye. Suddenly, the woman looked ten years older.

"I could go into greater detail, Miss Lawson, but I think you're starting to understand why I've contacted you."

Miranda didn't know whether to laugh, or cry.

"Shepard's alive."

Hannah nodded.

"And as the only surviving member of Project Lazarus we could find, it's up to you my baby stays that way."


	3. Graveyard Shift

**A/N:** Life was crazy! Now it's manageable sort of insane where I can work more often. Thank you so much for your kinds words and patience!

05-01 I fixed a few grammatical and story errors!

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><p><em>Adelaide, Australia wasn't known for being particularly hot in the warmer months, but in the appropriately-named Helios facility the underground labs it could get oppressively heated. 'Hell' wasn't much of an exaggeration.<em>

_It was here, when Miranda was twelve that fear had first turned into obstinacy, and obstinacy into resentments. She was thirteen when it finally escalated into rebellion; it was not a word she used with hormonal, teenage connotations. When other girls went running to for the hills, it was to their room or a friend's house. Likewise, this abstract concept of "other girls" probably weren't reminded they weren't part of that niche on a near-daily basis. Other girls didn't have to outrun an asari biotics instructor and three armed guards._

_She could barely hear her instructor shout her name just as she ducked into an open ventilation shaft and missing a stasis throw by a fraction. Miranda scrambled through the tight shaft until the only sounds were her rapidly bruising hands and knees banging against the metal side of the vents as she pressed on with no set destination other than, 'anywhere but here'. This wasn't the first time she had an episode like this, but it was the first time she made it farther than the arm's reach of her teachers or the on-site security team. She could chock up her success to good genes, but that felt like it would just be rewarding the source of her ills. Miranda was out of the first shoot when she settled on calling herself clever and lucky this time; not "blessed," like her father liked to put it._

_Helios was her father's largest Earth-base facility, and the one she had spent most of her life on. It was built for one of his satellite companies that specialized in the advancement in human biotics, virtual intelligence, and cyber warfare-Miranda being the centerpiece of the first division. Here, on Helios, was where she was first outfitted with her L1 implant when she was fours, and later the L3 retrofitted implant; it hadn't even gone commercial, even to the Alliance. But Miranda was always the special one, regardless of her own feelings. Her thirteenth birthday present was a two inch scar just under the hair line and the ugliest post-surgery buzz cut no girl of her tastes would take lying down. It was the catalyst to this latest and largest blow out between her and her father._

_Her father. She wasn't thinking in metaphor when she knew there was going to be a crime scene once he learned his precocious little investment really stepped in it this time. The thought alone was almost enough to stop her ducking into the next set of vents, but she was never brought up a quitter; even when her goals didn't exactly run concurrent to her father's. Especially then._

_Miranda had just kicked open the first loose vent grill she came across when the weight of what she was doing was starting to bear down on her conscious. Regret started to worm its way in. No turning back of feeling anything less than triumph for getting this far, but regret because, in the chaos of recent events, she had absolutely no idea where she was since two vents shafts ago. Helios was a mega-structure and the flagship of her father's twisted projects. Miranda had maybe seen a tenth of it in all her time her, and only ever under some kind of guard or another. Whatever area she just came crashing into was entirely new to her. This was...disconcerting. If there was one thing she and her father could agree on was that 'Not Knowing' was something high on their own respective shit lists. Regardless, this was not much of a deterrent to go and push on. Miranda climbed out of the vents and took in her alien surroundings with a curious-sort of wariness._

_The layout of the place was nothing foreign. One nondescript, sterile white hallway compared to all others that filled the facility. The only feature marking this area as different was the oppressive feeling of abandonment that shrouded it. It was clean, but untouched as if someone went through and flash-froze its final moments. All she could hear was the sound of her heart pounding against her chest. It drummed relentlessly as she felt fear well up inside her again. She gripped her post-op buzz cut, just above the implant scar; slide down against one of the sterile white walls, and in her frustration she began to cry._

Miranda could feel sweat pooling on her brow and around her eyes as she was jerked back into consciousness. She pulled herself back into her office chair, rearranging what her little nap skewed up her desk.

Beside her, a vid-screen was left on; a news reporter in a little white dress was summarizing the Reaper's systematic destruction of southern Australia and other major cities with the emotional range of a melancholic weatherman. It wasn't a live feed—something last night compelled her to leave this segment of a weeks old broadcast playing on continuous loop. Her hands were steady as she tapped the haptic display to close. Steady because that was what she needed to be.

Adelaide was gone. Helios was still an active satellite of her father's machinations when she had first left Earth. Reapers razed it to the ground with everything else, no doubt. This thought did not give Miranda anything but the sensation that was sitting in a cold metal shaft again, waiting for something better to happen. Inaction was an indolent poison that made her chaff and squirm. She needed to move around, to just do.

The small office RDML. Shepard had given her after the SMV Gently as She Goes docked with the Alliance-commandeered mercy ship, the SSV Moya, was smaller than her base planetside, but with good reason. Mercy ships like that, retrofitted for use by the Alliance were perfect for flitting about high-atmo and into hot zones when a large scale rescues had an equal sum of wounded in tow. It was also a very secure way to ferry some rather precious cargo on its ICU deck without the chaos of Earth interfering. The Moya could carry a crew of two hundred, and would still not be tasked to capacity if it needed to hold three times that many patients. Presently, Moya only had thirty staff and only a small handful of patients to burden her. She drifted along the pull of Luna's dark side; it left her and her high-priority charges well out of any conflicts.

Miranda really only cared about one Moya was carrying. It got her moving, got her thinking again. She readied herself to brief the purportedly gifted men and women who would be assisting her with Shepard's recovery. She didn't know them, she didn't like that. Hannah Shepard was throwing her enough black boxes into this to make the Illusive Man, goddamn his soul now, blush. The woman shuffled like the most amicable card dealer you could imagine, but dealt like the devil. She was careful, like Miranda. Miranda also didn't like that. Made Hannah harder to read during those ever scarcer moments she checked in on the project that has yet to be given some ostentatious name of some sort.

Before leaving her quarters and make her way to ICU, she found herself pausing in front of a rectangular slab of glass you could generously call a mirror. It was like it wasn't her staring back. She sniffed at this stranger in her red and blue uniform worn by head physicians, and at the face with the deflated black locks and the face that hadn't touched make up in what looked like years. This stranger was hell on two shapely legs. Miranda pulled away, she saw enough.

Gage Sanderson was waiting for her, by chance he claimed, in the lift that would take them both to the ICU. Gage was a great bear of a man, with salt and pepper hair that seemed to cover every bit of exposed skin to some degree; he was one of her ex-Cerberus underlings, and the first to follow her when she was taking name and going after Cerberus, and the only one qualified to be brought on this project with her. It was cold war with Hannah letting him follow her here, but Miranda walked away with that victory. She needed Gage's knowledge of implant firmware—legal, and otherwise—and his non-Alliance sort of brutality should it come to that. He was the kind of loyal she liked, die hard. Gage joined Cerberus when batarians killed his daughter, and Gage joined Miranda when Cerberus killed his son. Blood was the best adhesive to a cause.

They said their canned pleasantries and rode the lift in silence, for a moment, before Gage open that mouth of his; the one that spoke in that deep, barrel chested voice that commanded attention no matter how much you just wanted to tune the blow hard out.

"Reports say her face exploded."

Miranda hmmm'd.

"_Exploded, _ma'am."

Gage's expertise in implants bordered on morbid. Miranda tapped her knuckles on the lift floor control panel. Nope, still moving at the speed of zero. Finally, she indulged conversation. He would have kept talking, anyway.

"Some of the cybernetics in her left eye and forehead short-circuited after she was recovered, but the damage is merely cosmetic. At least," her voice chilled "if you work as well under pressure on an operating table as you did on Cerberus base raids."

Gage was a big man, and Miranda could feel the whole lift sway as he rolled on the balls of his feet, dejectedly. She was never unkind to the man; Gage was possibly her most loyal Cerberus expat, but he would just never shut up. She chalked it up to a harmless sort of madness from losing one's family. You talk about nothing so you don't have dwell on everything. Understandable, but as of right now not very welcome.

He was off by a mark when he tried to change the subject.

"First time seeing her?"

Miranda hmmm'd again, but continued with

"I will be handling preliminary diagnostics today, yes."

Those words felt colder than they did two years ago, when she was having a near-same conversation with Jacob Taylor when they were working of the Lazarus project. Shepard was an unknown then. A "pile of meat and tubes" as Jacob called it; something Miranda couldn't put a face to, or a laugh. Or that smile. Miranda wanted off this lift, now.

"After we meet the team that recovered her."

"Hmmm."

The lift doors hissed open, the two stepped out while Gage just kept talking.

"What did you say their names were again, ma'am?"

"Lieutenant James Vega, the only surviving crewman on Shepard's ground team and some Ascension Project team lead by their teacher. Hadn't gotten names yet on the biotics squad, probably irrelevant."

A voice, definitely not Gage's, rang across the hallway leading out of the lift vestibule.

"Well, fu…_fun. _It's the cheerleader."

Goddammit.


End file.
